Golden Ears Audio Ear Training (Manual)

8/8/2019 Golden Ears Audio Ear Training (Manual)

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W elcom e to th e Go l de n ......." nLlUlUU sing th e C D s : Calibra t ing y o u rVo lu m e 1 : fre qu en cie liV ohm Ic 1 D isc 1 : t h e an sw ersV o lum e 1 D isc 2 : th e an swe r sA w o rd a b o u t b lank a tl$w er hee tsVo l ume 2 : E { f e c t s a n d S l g i \ a l P r o c e s , s m gThe Ala Drills exp la in ed ' . "V olum e 2 D isc I: th e an sw ersV olu r;n e 2 D isc 1 : M u sic C re~ !sVo l ume 2 Disc 2 : th e a ns w ersV o lum e 2 D lsc 2 : MI1'1 icCredi tsP ro blem s, s ug ge stio ns andObj e c t i e e s o f t h i s s t u dyA few w am in g s ., A c k n o w le d ~ em e n tsAbbut the au thorVo l ume 3 : T im e Q om aln - D e l a y r u d R . e e rb g l 'U t sVo l ume 3 D isc 1 : t h e a n sw e rsVo l ume 3 Disc 2 : the ansW elliV olum e 4 ;ifa s te r freqU enc ies -1/3 oo t vaVo lum 'lv ls c I : tile a n swe r sV olum e 4 D isc 2 : th e an sw ersB la nk a nsw e r sh ee tsV olum e 1 frequency an sw er b l anksV olum e 2 A lB d rills re fe rence g u i d e.V olum e 2 A i B drills answer b lanksVo l ume 3 D e la y tim e s referen ce g U id eV olum e 3 D elav tim es d rills an sw er b l a n . l i $V olum e 3 P rede lay t i m e s reference g \u d e 'V olum e 3 Pr eqe l ay t ime s a n s w e r b lan l(.s .V olum e 4 113 oc tav e d rills re fe rence g IPd ll.V olum e 4 113 oc tav e d rills an sw er b lankSV o ltu n e 4 d ua l o c ta v e d r ills reference m t r d eV olum e ~ dua l o c tave p rills an sw er


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This manual and th e accompd e c a d e s o f s t u d i o e x p e r i e n c ed u c t io n a t a number 0 '1 t,i.rI1;titlJttClj1Frequenc ies, Volume 2: Bffer ts""""D elay and /?eve rb D rills ,Duat-O c t4 Jie ,D rills are the ,""'.n",~",ti,ngdrill se ts , E ach v b l um e J , s a nof hands-on xperience into (l~".IY'~~~\

A s yo u work you r w a y thXOL tgh . ." " , , ' . o nd y ow ' $ e l . f h e a n nF e o o r d .i i lgs in a c o rr tp le te ty n ew Iig h t.P u r th er rn ore , yo u may e x pe c t th ese C O s t o p rov i d eyears o f service a s a r e fe re n ce . L o n g aft l(" mastering th e exercises, yo u 'l l b e able tog iv e yo u r e ar s a n occasional " w o r k o u t " to ma i n t a i n y o u r valuable s k i l l s ,

A b o u t this mamral: Ma n y p e o p l e have an aversitm to reading manuals,How e v e r , jfyott w a n t to start d g h , t inwi t l 1 th e CD s , g o a h e a d . Simplypllt ol) w efirst C D , p la y i t , and try to f i g ' uTe it o u t , Wben yo u get c o n f u s e d o r b o r e d , or justfe e l l ik e re a d in g ' s o m e th in g , 1 lt~ a .1 :'sw h e n yo u shouldread the manual,

O n th e o t h e r h a n d , th e m an u a l , .a n d 1 1 )e C D s a te Q A s i g n e d to w o r k t o g e t h e r . W ehaven't w a ste d v a lu ab le D reeording ttme with infoanation t ha t could be betterp re s e n te d in this m an u a l '. I 'v e t t i~ d to pu t a s m u c h N s e f u 1 m$t~ljal as p o s s ib le inth is m a n ua l, so yo u m i1 t , w r tn t i " e sq a in y o m , ' initial u rge to le a p IightiJt. ,

W hy d e v e l o p G o ld e n Ea rs '? T h e auditory cha l l e nge s f a c i n g tOday ' s musiciansa n d record~~,lnixin~ m: ' d ~n a s r e r i n ~ e n g i n }s a r ?7ea : uy s \ . l b~ t i a l , ';rheperfor-m a n c e baseline fo r a u d ip te c h ~ (}Io g y 'f u J$ _ ifu p rw e& d ram a t ic a l ly o v e r : th e p a s t

recordtna engineering and p r o -VVL lU i tV t : p u t c h a s e d , Volume 1:

Volu'me 3; Time DomainP re(;{'uenc ies- 11$ ctaue andse r ie s o f au dio eartrain-design~d to cohdertse year s


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twenty years, From the recording studio to the listener's loudspeakers, we havecome to expect recordings of superb acoustic instruments, really convincing sam"plingand synthesis, mega-awesome processing capabilities, and so forth. We nowexpect audio quality that includes flat frequency response, noiseless and distor-tionless audio signals, and superb time and spatial resolution. To get these things,we need extremely weU-developed critical listening skills.Golden ears are skilled enough to discern, measure, analyze, and express the

physical qualities of musical sounds accurately Once you have them, you w i l l beable to listen to recordings with more sensitivity and awarenessGolden ears enable us to realize the full potential of our audio systems in the pro-duction of recorded music. This CD set provides a crucial tool for developing those

ears quickly and easily.It provides a base of auditory experience and knowledge thatis essential forworking with modem recorded music. Working through these drillsand using them as refreshers from time to time willpermit you to gain and maintainthe eq uivalent of fiveto ten years of critical listening experience in a matter ofweeks ..Asyou get good at these drills, you wi l l be ableto pinpoint problems rapidly andmake useful decisions about how to deal with 'various audio and musical prob-lems, instead of having to resort to the more traditional "keep turning knobs untilsomething sounds good" approach, with its accompanying hype (".I'mjust reset-ting the critical phase offsets. I'll be with you in a second. There, how's that? Yagotta love it!").You will come to know, by ear, how the audio energy is distributedacross the spectrum, approximately how loud two sounds are relative to eachother, the kinds of signal processing going on, and so on. Almost as important, youwill be able to easily detect when others are reduced to random knob-twiddlingand hype. #~

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Calibrating your system

Calibration consists of a brief sequence of pink noise and five tones. The pinknoise will be used for setting playback level, and the tones will be used to confirmthe spectrum range of your playback system. The calibration material is at the endof each CD.This way you don't have to listen to it each time you start up.First, you "rill set yOW" playback level. It is fairly important not to adjust levelswhile you are doing the drills (because of the variation in level vs. spectrum at dif-

ferent loudness levels--- the so-called Fletcher-Munson curves). You will listen tothe.pink noise to do this.Then you will check out the spectrum using the tones. You should probably

have all of your tone controls off or set at flat, unless you are really attached tosome listening setting that you like an awful lot. Also, i f you have a loudness com-pensation button on yom playback preamp or receiver, you should tum it off.Setting Playback Level Using Pink Noise111epink noise is played at three different levels. The first level is the "nominal

listening l e v e l . " Itwill be at the same loudness as the slates and drills when noth-ing is boosted or cut. You should set the your playback level so it is comfortablymedium loud, subject to the considerations of the next two pink noise levels (75dB S P L might be nice, if you have an S P L meter handy). The second level is 6 dBlouder than the nominal listening level and it is about as loud as any of the drillsever get. You should verify that Calit doesn't cause your speakers or the neighborsany distress and (b) it is comfortable, if somewhat Loud.The third level is another6 dB louder (12 dB above the nominal level), and represents the maximum level

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that your playback system wi l l ever need to handle for these drills. You should sim-ply confirm that the system doesn't show signs of distress (bad odors, cracklingnoises. obvious distortion, etc.) at this level. If it does, you will need to turn down- the playback level until it can be reproduced with ease by your system.

Checking the Response of Your System Using the Tones.The last track on the CD is about 20 seconds long and consists of five

sinusoidal tones, in the following order:1KHz10KHz100Hz15KHz40Hz

These are at the nominal listening leveL Each tone lasts forabout five seconds.You should play back the five tones. Ifyou can't hear 1Kl-lz,10KHz or 100 Hz at

the nominal listening level, there is a serious problem with your monitoring systemthat has to be dealt with before you can proceed. The loudnesses of these tones maysound different to you--;-so long as the differences are not extreme, you are OK.The15 KHz and 40 Hz tones-represent extremes of the audio spectrum, both for theequipment and for our hearing. Expect them to be significantly softer in level. Theymay even be inaudible or barely audible. If so, you can proceed. but you should beaware that you may have a Littletrouble hearing the extremes of the spectrum.You are now ready to begin the drills.There are two basic types of driJJs: sets of examples of changes in 10udJleSSofoctave bands of the audio spectrum and critical (AlB) comparisons of two ver-

sions of a recording.7

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One

Frequencies


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The Equalizati'onDrilisThe equalization drill sets each consist of ten examples. Each example is about

ten seconds long and consists of either pink noise or music. The example beginswith the sound played normally After about three seconds, the sound is altered byboosting or cutting "theamplitude of one or more octaves in the spectrum, using agraphic equalizer. After about four seconds of equalized sound, the sound isreturned to its normal state. Yom task is to identify which octaves of the spectrumwere boosted or cut.To help you, there is a warmup drill preceding the drill set to let you get the"sound" of the various octaves "in your ears." Also, the beginning drill sets restrict

the octave ranges being changed into groups called "low" (octaves one throughfive, 31-500 Hertz), "mid" (octaves four through eight, 250---4000 Hertz), and"high" (octaves six through ten, 1KHz-16 KHz). This greatly simplifies your deci-sion-making at the beginning.Doing the Equalization DrillsCalibrate your system (refer to the previous section) and get yourselfset on the

median plane (equidistant from each speaker). You will find the answers to theseexercises at the end of this chapter and answer sheet templates at the end of themanual. Start at the beginning, with Drill Set 1of the first CD ofVolume 1. Play the Drill Set, which will include the warmup drill. While listening to thewarmup drill, try to memorize the sound of the octaves being boosted. Then lis-ten to the ten examples of the drill set. Guess which octave is being boosted andwrite it down, expressing it as a center frequency (i.e. "125 Hz").When you complete the drill set, hit pause on the CD player, alld skip back to

the beginning of the drill set. The CD will cue up just after the slate for the drill setitself, at Example 1.

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Play the drill set a second 'time to double check your answers. Pause and skipback again. Now take out the answer sheet that is included in the CD bookiet, andplay back the driJJ set a third time, listening while writing down the correctanswers on the answer sheet. Pause again at the end to score yourself. I f you guess the correct octave on anexample, give yourself 10 for that example, For each octave "off" you are, take away1,so that ifyou guessed 1KHz (Octave 6) and the light answer was 250 Hz (Octave4), your score is 8. Total up your scores for all ten examples, A perfect score for adrill set is 100.If you simply wrote down random answers, you should get around40 points. What I've found is that scores of between 85 and 95 are typical for singleoctave bands of music being boosted or cut, once you get the hang of it. Now go ahead to Drill Set 2. Once again, listen to the warmup drill and play

through the ten examples while guessing which octave is boosted. Listen to theexamples a second time to reconsider your answers. Then play back the exampleswhile loo.kingat the correct answers and entering them on the answer sheet. Pauseand score yourself.

G o ahead to Drill Set 3 and repeat. Quit for the time being. It is counterproductive to work on these exercises

when your ears are tired. Strut your second session by repeating the last drill set of the previous session.Again, do three drill sets, listening to each drill set twice before checking the

answers. Always listen to the drill set while you check the correct answers, andwrite those correct answers down to help you learn to "visualize" in your mind thecorrect answer related to the sound.Work through both CDs in Volume 1this way, repeating the last dri.Uset from theprevious session and adding two new drill sets.Drill Sets 1-3 involve pink noise being boosted inlow, middle and high regions

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of the audio spectrum.Drill Sets 4-6 use musical material instead of pink noise, again boosting in low,

middle and high regions of the spectrum.Drill Set 7 will introduce cuts, again starting with pink noise. Youwill probablyfind it is easiest to identify the frequency of the octave being cut when it is being

brought back in at the end of the example.DrillSet 13 begins to deal with the entire spectrum, so that your range of'possible

choices ismuch larger.Ifyou find yourself getting confused bytoo many choices, feelfreeto go back and review any of the first 12 d r i l l sets in order to get your bearings.DLi1lSet 5 on the second CD introduces the possibility that a given octave is

either boosted or cut. As you do these drilIs,you must indicate on the answer sheetwhether the octave in question is boosted (use a "+") or cut (use a "_").When youscore this or later drill sets where you have to guess whether the octave is boostedor cut, ifyou guess wrong, take away two more points, so that ifyou had guessed1KHzboosted when in fact 250 Hz was cut, your score would be 6.When you have worked your way through both CDs ofVolume 1 this way, youshould then try CD 1 on random play. Now you will do the drill sets without aw a r m u p and without knowing what the drill set is going to be about. Always listenagain while writing down the correct answers.When you have become proficient at heating the drills on CD 1, switch to CD 2and play it randomly. Toprovide a little more challenge, try listening only once to

the drill set before checking with the correct answers. CD 2 can be played Jots oftimes (probably close to an infinite number- although why you would do that Ihonestly do not know) before you will know it well enough to be able to remem-ber the answers.1 7~r ou g h a ll a /this , lim it your s e ss ion s to thr e e or;a t the mos t , fou r d r ill s e ts .

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How these drills were madeThe equalization drills were produced using Pink Noise from an Ivie Pink Noise

generator and Compact Disc recordings in a variety of musical styles. Althoughthese drills are pretty close to Fair Use under the copyright law, we have obtainedpermissions from all owners of the recorded material, and would like to thankthem by encouraging you [0 support them by buying their records. See the creditlist for a complete listing of all recordings used.Both the Pink Noise (in mono) and the recordings (in stereo) were passed

through a UREI IO-band graphic equalizer and then recorded directly to hard diskvia Digidesign's Pro Tools for editing and assembly. The graphic equalizer was setflat and [or each exercise the appropriate octave band was boosted or cut by theappropriate amount (12 dB, or the limit of travel, for Volume 1). In the musicrecordings, both channels were treated identically.I determined which band(s) to boost or cut bythe use of a random nwnber gener-

ator, subject to the following limits; I never did the same thing twice in a rO\'IT,and Iexcluded "no change" as a possible answer. Because the selection was random, don'texpect that all octave bands must be included in any drill set, or that you can antici-pate what we are going to do next. I wasn't trying to fool you or pJaymind games.After assembly editing of all the drills and slates, I got bored with the slates and

decided to add signal processing to an occasional slate, for amusement. The pro-cessing varies from slate to slate and it's there to give you something else to doWhile improving your mind.The slate for each track actually appears at tile end of the warmup drill, so that

you may listen 'blind' to each track.

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One

the Audio Spectrum

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Perfect pitch is a highly developed auditory memory that allows you to identifya given pitch by ear alone. A few people have that memory capability naturally.Most of us can learn it, if we want to. The Golden Ears course does somethingrelated to perfect pitch training, in that it teaches and develops your memory forregions of the audible spectrum. 'Nbere the musician with perfect pitch can say"That note is an E-flat," you will be able to say, "The treble is boosted by 3 dB at 2.5KHz" This Latterability nuTIS out to be extremely useful. In essence, it gives you theability to tune your audio system or recording studio, which can be thought of asa musical instrument.Youwill learn to identify the qualities of frequencies throughout the audible

spectrum, using pink noise and musical examples. This ability is developed grad-ually. In Volume 1,you will learn the sound of each of the ten octaves in the spec-trum. These are the raw materials of frequency out of which we build music, andeach one has its own particular characteristics, quality, and musical significance.Inrecording, handling these octaves is one of our primary tasks.On the following page:The Ten Octaves of'the Audio Spectrum. Given both in terms of the ISO center frequen-

cies (on lef!) and boundary frequencies. Each octave has its own particular qualities,mu s ic a lly , a c ou s tic a lly a n d ps y c ho ac o u s tic a lly . . ..

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~ 4 M11i't oi! 2 K0;. .it I K~~E 500Hzji~ 250E0;. ,. . .~~ 1 6 2 . S~1:131 . 25t

20480H .Octave [0: Extreme highs, airiness, hiss and sizzle. Little musical content. Upperpari of 'edge' of sound

10240Octave 9: Highs, treble, metallic brightness, sibilance. musical content includescymbals, upper end of snare drum, metal guitar strings, etc, Sometimes calledbrilliance.

5120Octave 8: Presence, 'edge' of hard consonants. primary recognition range for voiceand \'\'0 rds , upper end of SpeCL[llrtl for many lnstrumems. brightness, etc,Crltlcal musical and vocal range.

2560Octave 7: Upper mid-range. Phantom Image recognition. Hardness, ln tensity,loudness, definition. Major range of'harmonlc content and spectral identifiers formany Instruments .

1280Octave 6: Mid-range. Highest fundamental pltches.Begtmung of up per harmoniesand spectral identifiers for lower instruments. Musical contents includes pitches,central parts of most instruments! spectra,

640Octave 5: Lower mid-range. Body and richness of sounds. Fullness and roundedqualities. The primary rreble octave of musical pitches.320

Octave 4~1111,";:50-called 'mud-range'. Transmoncctnve lietveen bass andrnl d ra n g e . T h ic k n a s s a n d rn u d dln e s s , th u m p i n e s s . T h e T e n Or o c t a v e G r m u slc alpitch es, Cr i t i c a l fundamental pitch range. Middle C lives here.

160D e-L a v e 3; U pp e r b a s s , M u s ic a l f o u n d a t io n o c ta v e . B a s s a n d lo w er e lem en ts o f d l 'U JJ1k it have fundamental, here. Critical bottom end Tango. All speukers play back thisoctave.

80Ocruve 2: Lower bass, Sonic foundarion octave. Bottom oJ ' l11US lcaJ pirches. Primarybass energy. Low C lives here. Mostloudspeakers play back this octave.

4 00",",," 1: Bottom end. Little musical content, Ellects. Fundamental of kick drum,mostly not played back by loudspeakers. Very nrrnosphertc. Exotic.

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Some insights about these octave ranges:-Various musical functions exist in various different ranges. Octaves 2-5 contain

the musical fundamental pitches. Octaves above those contain the overtones thatare central to defining timbre for musical sounds.- Overall apparent loudness is very much a function of how these octaves are

treated, This is particularly true for octave 7, which contains the frequencies ourears are most sensitive to.Later on, we are going to release additional materials you can use to learn to

identify (to 3 dB accuracy) the magnitude of a change in level of any octave of thespectrum. This skillwill then be extended to lf3 octave resolution.Another useful direction we will also offer allows you to practice hearing two dif-

ferent octaves of the spectrum modified slmultaneouslvwhen you have masteredthis, you will have acquired the fundamental ability to mentally scan the audiblespectrum and "hear out" spectral elements by ear. Youwill begin to be abLeto hearand identify f u l l equalization curves, not to mention the harmonic structures ofindividual musical sounds. Finally. you can work on drills involving three spectralregi.onsmodified simultaneously!

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Volume 1, Disc 1 (Frequencies)

This is the first CD inthe Golden Ears Audio Ear Training series of recordings.Drills on this CD involve identifying one-octave bands of pink noise or recordedmusic that have been boosted or cut using a conventional graphic equalizer. Thefirst 12 drill sets involve only a portion of the audio spectrum, making it easy foryou to concentrate on learning the sound of a particular portion of the spectrum.Drillsets 13 and 14 involve the entire audio spectrum,Answers are given below. I recommend that you go back and re-Iisren to driUs

you have done while observing the answers to help you "internalize" the soundsof the various octaves of the spectrum. Please note that'Irack Cue points occur afterthe identifying slates and warm-up drills,so that you may select drills at random totestyour hearing ability as it develops.AUof us at KIQ Productions gratefully acknowledge and thank the various

record companies that have allowed us to use their recorded materials. We urgeyou to support these companies and buy their records.Credits

Created and produced by David MoultonEngineer: Robin Coxe-Yeldharn. Assistants: Bill Lee and Dan RicciRights to recorded material granted by:

Boston Skyline Records, Boston, MASOLRecords, 51 Maxfield Street, West Roxbury, MA02131 Tel. 6]7-327-6470JVCRecords, Los Angeles, CA


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Drjfl Set I Lotocst jive one-octave hands a/Pink Noise boosted 1 2 dDh o m ~ l e # 'l 3 4 7 8 1 0A n ~ w e r s : 5 0 0 H z 6 3 H z 5 0 0 H z 3 1 H z 2 5 0 H z 1 2 5 H z 5 0 0 H z 1 2 5 H z 2 5 0 H z 5 0 0 H z

Drill sa z Midd/f'fiIJP one-nciane band. o//Jillk Noise boosted 12 dBE x a m p l e # 6 - 9 1 0A n s w e r s : 4 K H z 2 K H z 2 S 0 H z 5 0 0 H z 2 5 0 H z 5 0 0 H z 1 K H z 4 K H z 5 0 0 H z 2 K H z

Drill Set 3 lIighe,,' pt'e one-octoue bauds ofPink NOII;( ' boosted 12,-/BE x a m p l e # 2 3 4 7 1 0A n s w e r s : 1 K H z 8 K H z 2 K H z 8 K H z 4 K H z 8 K H z 1 K H l 1 6 K H z 2 K H z 1 K H zonu sa t14mie: Tom Coster: " 0 0/; (; /1 11 /1. ,. Ir e 2015-2. Baud I.)Loioest . f i _ v P one-ucture bands o/,II/lIs;(' boosted 12 dBE x a m p l e # 6 - 9 1 0A n s w e r s : 6 3 H z 2 5 0 H z 5 0 0 H I 3 1 H z 5 0 0 H z 63 H z 1 2 5 H z 6 3 H z 5 0 0 H z 2 5 0 H z

IJ rill Se ! 5 {M u sic : S(e ;n


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Drill s 7Formal: Lou-estfioe one-octace band. ofPiuk Noise cu! 12 dB.E x a m p l e #A l l S w e r s :

2 4 7 9 105 0 0 H z 6 3 H z S O D l i z 3 1 H z 1 2 5 H z 5 0 0 H z 1 2 5 H z 3 1 l iz 2 5 0 H z 6 3 H z

Drill fM ~Formal: Middll' fille one-octnre band of Pink Noise rut J 2 dB,E x a m p l e #A n s w e r s :

2 3 4 6 8 9 105 0 0 H z 1 K H z 2 5 0 H z s a o H z 4 K H z S O D H z 1 K H z 2 5 0 H z 2 K H z ' 4 K H z

Drill sasI'orlllut: l-fig/u'slfi"e one-octure bauds of Pink Noise cui 12 dB.E x o m p l e #A n s w ~ r l :

5 6 7 8 1 04 K H z 1 6 K H z 1 K H z 2 K H z 4 K H z 8 K H z 1 K H z 1 6 K H z 8 K H z 1 6 K H z

Drill s 10 (HI.l,.il:: "TIll' 11,")' BeM oITnACKS, (969-197'/'," BSD Ill. Band I}Format: Lurcesi jioe one-octaoe bnruls 0IJI'fIl.,ic cut 12 riB.E x a m p l e #A n s w e r ; :

2 3 4 9 1 02 5 0 H z 6 3 H z S O D H z 6 3 H z 1 2 5 H z 2 5 0 H z 1 2 5 H z 2 5 0 H z 6 3 H z 5 0 0 H z

Dril! 8,'1 II (H/lsic: Kpl')'n Lettau: "Simple Life,"liT 2016-2, Baud 1)Formal: Midrl/eji.l)p one-octaoe bands ofMusic cut 12 db.E x a m p l e # 3 4 6 8 1 0A n s w m : 5 0 0 H z 2 K H z 1 K H z 4 K H z 2 5 0 H z 5 0 0 H z 2 5 0 H z 1 K H z 5 0 0 H z 2 5 0 H z

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Urill Set 12 ( l 1 i / l I S i e : Brill/a I lUue,.g: "Pentimou!o," I3SD 115, llrunl 1)Fnrmat: Highes! [ice one-octane bands U/;lI}f.ISi{' rut 12 riB.E x c m p l e t lA n s w e r ; :

2 3 4 1 08 K H z 1 6 K H z 4 K H z B K H z 2 K H z 4 K H z 1 6 K H z 4 K H z 2 K H z 4 K H z

Drift 8(,( 13Forum I: All ten 'IfI..-octare bauds u/ Pink. Noise i:mosfr"d {2 dlJ.E x a m p l e #A ~ s w e r s :

2 5 6 7 8 1 0

E x a m p l e #A n s w e r s :

4 9 1 0

3 1 H z 1 6 1 < H z 1 K H z 2 K H z 6 3 H z 4 K H z 3 1 H z 4 K H z 6 3 K H z 4 K H z

Drill 8M 14 (:Wusic: O,m Urusin: "!JOII Crus;"." ur ./Jill 'l01()-2, Bond /)Formal: A lf ten one-orture bands ,,/Jltllsi(' boosted 1;! dF1.

1 6 K H z 4 K H z 6 3 H z 5 0 0 H z 8 K H z 4 K H z s a o H z 1 6 K H z 6 3 H z m H z

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Volume 1, Disc 2 (Frequencies contd.,

This is the second CD inthe Golden EarsAudio Ear Training series of recordings.Drills on this CD involve identifying one-octave bands of pink noise or recordedmusic that have been boosted or cut using a conventional graphic equalizer. Thefirst four d r i l l sets each are restricted to either boosting or cutting, The remainingten sets involve a mixture of boosting and cutting octaves across the entire audiospectrum.Answers are given below. 1recommend that you go back and re-listen to drills

you have done while observing the answers to help you "lnternallze" the soundsofrhe various octaves ofthe spectrum. Please note that TrackCue points occur aftertheidentifying slates and warmup drills,so that you may select drills at random to testy o u r hearing abilityas it d ev e l o p s ,All of us at KIQ Productions gratefully acknowledge and thank. the various

record companies that have allowed llS to use their recorded materials. We urgeyou to support these companies and buy their records.CreditsCreated and produced by David Moulton

Engineer: Robin Coxe-Yeldharn. Assistants: BillLee and Dan RicciRights to recorded material granted by:

Boston Skyline Records, Boston, :M ASOLRecords, 51Maxfield Street, West Roxbury, :M A 02131 Tel. 617-327-6470NC Records, LosAngeles, CA

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D rill S ( 'I IFormat. /tIl len one-octare band ofPink ...\ioi"e boosted 12 dB.E x o m p l e #A n s w e r s :

4 6 9 1 01 6 K H z 1 2 5 H z 8 kH z 1 2 5 H z 5 0 0 H z 1 6 K H z 4 K H z 3 1 H z 2 5 0 H t 3 1 H z

Dri l f s 2 [M u sic , "The Very Be s t . o /'l 1lACKS . 1969-1974," B SD I J t. B


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Drill SPl6FQrIIUl/: All I , , , , one-ocuuie batul o] Pink Noise boosted (+ ) 01" cut () j;! tll).Exum~I~#A n , w e r s : - - 8 , K H z

2+ 4 K H z

3 4+ 6 3 H z + 5 0 0 H z + 4 K H z

6 8 ,,9 10- 8 K H z + 5 0 0 H , + l K H ~ i " : 3 1 H I ' 1 - 2 5 0 1 l z,~. ~ ~~

Drifl Set 7Fnrnuu, AI! len. one-octaoe bands o{1Jink N[)I~\'c boosted (+ ) or cal (-) 12 d t J . . ,uf lmple# 6 7 8 1 0i I n ' iW e r s : + 1 6 K H z - 1 6 K H , - 3 1 H z ~ K H I + 5 0 0 H z + B K H , - 4 K H z

Drill Set 8 [Music: Sign! of Life: "Signs of L ife , " SOL Ilecords, Trock 2)Forma t: 0 4111( '/1one -oc ta r r bond s of M ns ic boos te d (+) Or cui (-) 12 r iB .bumpl ! #A n s w e r s :

2 3 4 1 0- - 8 K H zt B K H z ~,,~~- 4 K H z - 5 0 0 H z - 2 K H z + 1 6 K H z - 1 6 K H , . . . : 2 5 0 H l t 6 3 H l . , , . . . 3 1 H 1

Drill Set 9 ~'11""iG:Bnuu: flii.be'g: "Pefl tunen to. " Bsn I IS, Band 2)Format: AII/clI. U"C-OcfWI~ u ( U l d , , o/il1/J.sic boosted (+ ) 01' cui (-) f2 dJ1.E ~ a m p l e # 1 4 5 6 7 8A n S W 8 r > : + 1 2 5 H ~ + 2 5 0 H z - 5 0 0 H , + 2 5 0 H z - 1 2 5 H z + 5 0 0 H z + 1 2 5 H z - - 6 3 H l , , , , , ,5 . 0 0 H z - 2 5 0 H ~

E x ~ m p l e #i I n ' iW e r s :

2 4 1 0

Drill Set 1() (Mu. l i c : Tom C()stel': "Gulchufi." lYC 2015-2, nand 2)Format: All len OIW"OGl


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Drill s II ( :W /i , j; r . : Trio Sonato, "!!dIClHr/", NSf) J 1-+ , B"'I


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A word about blank answer sheets.At the back of the book you'll find a ll the blank answer sheets for the various

exercises and drills contained on the CDs. Inorder to keep this manual to practi-nil proportions we've only provided a handful of each format, so we advise you torush to Xerox machine and make fistfuls of copies of each type of blank so youwon't run out in the course of the program.

I f you do run short, fax us at 213/650-2468 and we'll fax or mail some newmasters to you.

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Two


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The AlB D.rillsEach AlB drill set consists of five examples. Each example is a pair of recorded

excerpts of music. The first recording (A ) is the "reference" and the second (BJis aclone of the firstwith some sort of signal processing or audio anomaly added. Yomtask is to identify the signal processing applied to the B recording.To assist you, we have limited the number of possibilities to a menu of 31 pos~

sible signal processing changes, grouped into six families: amplitude change, dis-tortion, compression, equalization, stereophony and time-delay/ reverberation.Also,we have included "no change" as an additional answer, just to keep you hon-est. Instead of a warmup ch i l i , the first half of CD3 demonstrates allof these effectsfor you. The balance of CD 3 and all of CD 4 are AlB drills.The AlB drills are an effort to instill critical listening paranoia in you and to

teach you how to hear and identify small differences between two versions of thesame recording. This is an absolutely essential skill for certain aspects of recordproduction work. Trust me! Youdon't want to be the one to explain that you didn'tnotice that the reverb return on the right channel dropped out in the middle of thethird song and that because you didn't notice it you went ahead and OK'd it for aproduction run of 5,000 CDs. Such explanations are upsetting for all concernedand it is better for your basic life quality ifyou don't have to be involved in manysuch explanations, particularly as the person who has to do the explaining!

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Doing the Drills Calibrate your system. Answer sheet templates are at the end of this chapter

and answer sheet templates at the end of the manual. Listen to the demonstration examples on CD 1of VoLume2. There are thirty-one of them, in six families. Go over them until you are quite sme you can hear the

differences described. Youwill probably find some of them quite easy. while oth-ers will be a little harder. Devote an entire listening session just to the demonstra-tion examples. It will take between 45 minutes and an hour. Then, in your next session, cue up Drill Set 1on CD 1 (beginning with Track 8).Listen to the fiveAlB examples. For each example, guess both which family of sig-

nal processing was used, and which specific menu item it was. On some examples,only one channel is changed. Guess which channel (note that it doesn't have to bethe same as the channel used inthe demonstration exampLes). After you have completed the five examples, put the CD player in Pause and

skip back to Track 8 (Example 1) again. Listen again to reconsider your answers.Skipback and listen a third time, this time writing down the correct answers. At theend of the drill ser, hit pause, and score yourself.Ifyou guess everything correctly, including left or right channel, give yourself

20 for the example. If you get the channel wrong but have everything else right,give yourself 15. I f you guess the right family of effects but have miss the menuitem, give yourself 10.Otherwise, it's the big tippo for you. A perfect score for a . drillset is 100. Ifyou guess randomly, you should probably get about 7 points. Typicalscores are between 45 and 70.After you have scored yourself, go back and check out the stuff you got wrong.

Listen to the A and B version until you can easily pick out the difference. Skip ahead to Track 13,the beginning ofDrill Set 2. Listen to the five examples,

listen again to check your answers, listen a third time willie looking at and writing


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down the con-eel answers, score you rself if you like, and resolve the examples youdidnt get right.

Tw o d r ill s e ts ( te n e xample s ) a r e e nou gh fo r an y giv e n s e ss ion .Work through the six drill sets on CD 1 and the 12 drill sets on CD 2 ofVolume

2.Then, lise the random function on CD 2 to really challenge yourself. Each exam-ple has its own track number. Press random and then play; listen to the A and Bversions, hit pause, and check the track number on the CD player. Look up theanswer. Ifyou didn't get it right, go back over the example until you can hear itRepeat up to ten times each session.How These Drills Were MadeThe AlB drills were created by recording an excerpt to hard disk from a com-

mercial recording about thirty seconds long. This recording (the A version) iscloned and then passed through one of the thirty-odd signal processing possibili-ties we have included, and then recorded as a second hard disk sound file. Thismodified clone is then named "B" and assembled with the slates and "fl. ' to createeach example in the drill set. Each example uses different music.Selection of the signal processing was done in ['NO stages, both random. First,the family of change type was selected, including the possibility of "no change."

Then, within each family, a particular change was selected. In the case where theselection involved only one of two channels, selection of Left or Right "vas also ran-dom. The only limit 1applied was not to allow two "no changes" in a row.1continued the practice of adding signal processing to the slates, just as a funkind of distractor. These have no relationship to the actual examples themselves.

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Heilring AmplitudeThe ability to hear a signal as being louder or softer seems obvious, but given

that the louder sound usually seems to sound better, itis essentia1 to know whenloudness is the only difference between two signals. That way, you neither foolyourself nor get fooled by some crazed or unethical salesperson. Another possi-bility I've included here is the gradual change in level. Tnthese examples, the Bver-sion starts out identically to the Aversion, but gradually changes level during theexample.

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Hearing DistortionYouwillieam to recognize TI{D (Total Harmonic Distortion) in recorded music,

in the 10-30% range (pretty gross) and inthe 1-10% range (mild). You will proba-bly be surprised to find out that perception of distortion is significantly affected bythe music being played, and also by the extent to which harmonic distortion isdependent on level. You also will learn that terms like "10% distortion" are prettymuch meaningless on dynamically changing Signals, and what we mean to say issomething like "the loudest peaks of the recording are probably generating distor-tion products that are only 20 dB (10% of the amplitude) softer than the peaksthemselves."Hearing CompressionYouwillleam to recognize the effect of compression on a variety of different sig-

nals, and to identify fast and slow compressor release times. This is a fairly difficultarea, and probably warrants significant study by itself (another future project).The "musical" impact of compression is a highly variable one, where very slightchanges result in dramatically different effects.


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Hearing EqualizationYou will learn to recognize equalization problems, on either or both channels.

This is, of course, related to the spectrum analysis drills you have been doing. Forthese drills we used on-console equalization rather than a graphic equalizer, andwe set controls in ways that we found musically relevant. The details of the indi-vidual settings are given in the answer sheets.Hearing the Stereo FieldYouwill learn to recognize anomalies in the stereo image consistently (reverseimage, mono summation, polarity reversal, and pseudo-stereo). These develop

your ability to identify the important and all too frequent errors that appear in ourfinal product: the stereophonic mix. Confidence that you can reliably catch and f ixthese problems is invaluable.I generated pseudo-stereo for these examples by using a lO-band graphic equal-

izer with alternating octaves boosted and cut and the settings of the two channelsreversed. The resulting phase shift results in a "phasey'' kind of stereo spaciousness.Hearing Time DomainYouwill learn to recognize channel-to-channel time differences over the I-50

ms. range, and to recognize gated and ungated reverb.

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Volume 2, Disc 1 (Effects & Processing)


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This is the third CD in the Golden Ears Audio Ear Training series of recordings.Drills on this CD involve identifying signal processing used to change a recording.The first half of the CD involves examples of 31 different possible signal- process-ing changes used in these examples. The remainder of the CD consists of drill setsof five examples each.Answers are given below. I recommend that you go back and re-listen to drills

you have done while observing the answers to help you "internalize" the soundsof the various octaves of the spectrum. Please note that TrackCue points occur afterthe identifying slates and warmup drills,so that you may select drills at random to t e s tyour healing ability as it develops.All of us at KIQ Productions gratefully acknowledge and thank the various

record companies that have allowed us to use their recorded materials. We urgeyou to support these companies and buy their records.Credits

Created and produced by David MoultonEngineer: Robin Coxe-Yeldham.Assistants: Bill Lee and Dan RicciRights to recorded material granted by:

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Boston Skyline Records, Boston, MASOLRecords, 51Maxfield Street, West Roxbury, :NlA02131 Tel. 617-327-6470NC Records, Los Angeles, CA


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E x a m p l e s h m il y S p e d f i c C h a n g e M u s ic

T ro [k I I n 1 r o d u c t i o n

I m r k 2 Am p l i t u d e 3 d B l o u d e r 1 2A m p l a u d e 3 d b s o f t e rA m p l i t u d e 3 d B a N e n d u r in g s o m p l e IIAm p l i t u d e 3 d b b o o s t d u r in g s o m p i e 5

T ro c k 3 D i s t o r t i o n g ro s> (1 0 - 3 0 % ) o v e r l o o d d is t o rt i o n ( " [ l i p p i n g" )D is t o rt io n s l i g h t ( 1 -3 % ) o v e r l o ad d i s l o rt i o n ( " c l i p p i n g " ) 1 4

T r u c k 4 { Q m p r e s s i o n , c om p r e ss io n , l n st r e le as e 1 3( o m p r e s ) i o n c om p re ss i o n , s l o w r e le as e 6

T r o tk 5 E q 00 I i- w t io n n i g h I r e q u en r i e s c u tE q u a l i z a t i o n h i g h f r e q u en d es b o o s te d 1 4E q u a l i z a t i o n L o r R r h o n n e l l e w s b o o s t e d 6 d B 1 0E q u a l i z a t i o n L o r R { h an ne ll o w s n 6 d B 2E q u a l i z a t i o n l o r R [ h o n n e l l o W l & h i g h s c u t 6 d B 4E q u a l i z a t i o n m id f r e q u e n c i e s b o o s te d 6 d B 7E q u a l i z a t i o n m id f r e q u e n d e s c o t 6 d B 8E q u a l i z a t i o n L o r R [ h o n n e l lo W l b o o s l e d & h ig h s r u t 6 d B 1 2E q u o l i w f i o n L o r R t h , m i d s & h ig h s r u t 6 d B 1E q u a l i z a t i o n L o r R c h o n n e l m id s h o o s t e d & o p p o s i t e r h o n n e l h ig h s c u t 6 d B 1 1

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E x a m p l n f ami ly S p e c i f i c C h o n g e M u s ic


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T ro ck 6 S t e r e o s t e r e o t o m o n oS t e r e o m o n o t o p se u d o - s te re oS t e r e o s t e r e o r e v e r s e d 1 4S t e r e o o ne c h a n n e l r e v er s e d p o l a r i t y 1 3

T m ck 7 T i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b r e v e r b a d de dT im e - d e ll l~ / R e v e r b r ev e rb d e l e te dT i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b g o te d r e v er b a d d e dT i m e - d e l o y / R e v e r b g at e d r e v e rb d el e te dT i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b 1 m s . t im e d e l a y L o r R t h ,l i m e - d e l o y / R e v e r b 5 m s. t im e d e l a y lo r R c h . 1 5T i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b 1 5 r n s . t im e d e l a y L o r R r h .T i m e - d e l o y / R e v e r b 3 0 m s . l im e d e l a y L o r R r h ,T im e -d e l a y /R e v er b . 5 0 m s, t im e d e l o y L 01 R th . 1 4

Drill Set 1T ra ck 8 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d b s o f t e r 1 2T ra c k 9 , E x 2 D i s t o r t i o n s l i g h t ( 1 -3 % ) o v er l o ad d is t o rt i o n ( " d ip p in g " )T ro (k 1 0 , E x 3 (o m p r e ~ o n c o m p r e s s i o n , s lo w r e l e a s e 1 3T r a c k 1 1 , E x 4 S t e r e o s t e re o r e v er se d 1 4T m c k 1 2 , E x 5 D i s t o r t i o n g r o s s (IO 3 0% ) o v er l o ad d is t o r t i o n ( " d ip p in g " )

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E x a m p l e s F am i l y S p e c i f i c C h a n g e M u s i c

Drill 8el2T r a c k 1 3 , E x 1 S t e r e o o n e c h a n n e l r e v e r s e d p o l a r i t y 1 1T m c k l 4 , E x 2 n o c no ng eT r a c k 15 , E x 3 E q u a l i z a t i o n lc h o nn e l lo v r ; 1 2 00 H z. ) b o o s te d & h ig h s ( 1 0 K H z . ) c u t 6 d BT ru c k 1 6 , E x 4 E q u a l i z a t i o n h ig h f r e q u e n c i e s ( 1 a K H z. ) c u tI r c r k 1 7 , E x 5 O is to l1 i o n s l i g h t ( 1 3% ) o v e r lo ad d i s t o r t i o n ( " d ip p i n g " )

Drill Set ,1T ro ck 1 8 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo u d e r 4T ro ck 1 9 , E x 2 S t e r e o m o n o 1 0 p s e u d o s t e r e o 9T r o c k 2 0 , E x 3 D is to rt i o n g r o ss ( 1 0 3 0 % ) o v e r l o ad d i s to rt i o n ( " d i p p i n g " ) 1 5T r o c k 2 1 , E x 4 E q u a l i z a t i o n L { ha n n e l l o w s b o o s te d 6 d B @ IS O H z. 2T r a c k 2 2 , E x 5 E q u al i z a ti o n . m id f r e q u e n c i e s b o o s te d 6 d B @ 1 .S K H z . 8

Drill Set 4T ro c k 2 3 , E x 1 E q u o l i z n t i o n R c h a n n e l l o w s D o o s t e d 6 d B @ 1 0 0 H z . 2T r a c k 2 4 , E x 2 G lm p r e s s i o n c om p r e ss io n , s l o w r e le as e 1 5T r a c k 2 5 , E x 3 S t e r e o o n e c h a n n e l r e v e r s e d p o l a r i t yT ro c k 2 6 , E x 4 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo u d e rT r a c k 2 7 ,E x 5 E q u a l i z a t i o n m id f r e q u e n d e s b c o s t e d 6 d B @ 1 . 5 K H z .

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E x a m p l e s F a m n y S p ~ c i f i c C h a n g e M u s i c


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Drill S'(" 5T r o c k 2 8 , E x 1 n o c h a n g el r c r k 2 9 , E x 2 E q u a l iz a ti o n h ig h f r e q u e n c ie s c u t 6 d B @ 1 0 K H z . 1 2T ro c k 3 0 , E x 3 E q u o l i Z a l i o n h ig h f r e q u e n cie s b o o s te d 6 d B @ 1 0 K H z . 9T r a c k 3 1 , E x 4 S t e r e o o n e c h o n n e l r e v e r s e d p o l o r i t y 4T r a c k 3 2 , E x 5 ( o m p r e s , i o n ( a m p re ss i o n , s l o w r e le as e 1

Drill s 6T r a c k 3 3 , E x 1 Am p l i t u d e 3 d b b o os t d u rin g s am p le 8T r o c k 3 4 , E x 2 T i m e. 0 8 1 0 y /R e v e r b r e v e r b a d d e d 1 4l r o r k 3 5 ,E x 3 Am p l i t u d e 3 d b b o o " d u r i n g s o m p l e 1 3T r a c k 3 6 , E x 4 C o m p r e s s i o n c om p r e ss i o n , s l o w r e l e a s e 6T ru c k 3 7 , E x 5 Am p l i t u d e 3 d b s o h e r

T ro ck 3 8 C a l i b ra tio n D o to

( ( o n t d . J

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A le x A cu n a a n d I h e U nk n o w n s : 'T h in k i n g o f Y o u , " lV C lM I20062 , l v e R e c o rd s2 O s r e r C a s t r a -N e v e s : " B r a z i l i a n S c a n d a l s " , l v e 2 0 1 8 - 2 , l v e R e c o r d s3 T o m C o s I e r : " G o l c h a ! ! ," lV e 2 0 1 5 -2 , J V C R e c o r d s4 F r a n k G a m b a le : " N o t e W o r k e r " , lM ID 2 0 0 1 , l v e R e c o r d s5 D o n G r u s in , " D o n G r u s i n ," l y e J M I 2 0 1 0 - 2 , l y e R e c o r d s

K e v yn L eH ou : " S im p le L if e ," lV e 2 0 1 6 -2 , lV e R e c o r d sS p e c i a l E F X : " P lo y " , lV e 2 0 17 -2 , lV C R e c o rd s , lV C R e c o r d sS ed o o W a la n ab e , "M o rn i n g I s l a n d ", J M I 2 0 1 3 -2 , l v e R e t o r d sS ig n s o f l i f e : " S ig n s o f L if e , " S O L R e c o r d s

1 0 F i f t h E s lo te : " D in g D o n g ! T h e W it c h is B a c k ! " , B S D J 1 6 , B a s I o n S ky l in e R e m r d s1 1 S e y m o u r H a y d e n : " S c a r l a H i b y H o y d e n , B o s t o n S ky li n e R e m rd s1 2 B r u n o R l ib e r g : P e n f im e n lo , " B S D 1 15 , B o s lo n S k y l in e R e c o r d s1 3 " T h e V e r y B e s t o f T R A C K S , 19 6 9 -1 9 7 4 , " B S D 1 1 1 , B o s to n S k y l in e R e c o r d s1 4 T r i o S o n a t a , B S D 1 1 0 , B a s I o n S k y l in e R e m r d s1 5 T r i o S o n a t a : " E n c o r e ! " , S S D 1 1 4 , B o s t o n S k y l i n e R e c o r d s

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Volume 2, Disc 2 (Effects & Processing)

This is the fourth CD in the Golden Ears Audio EarTraining series of recordings.Drills on this CD involve identifying signal processing used to change a recording.Answers are given below. I recommend that you go back and re-listen to drills

you have done while observing the answers to help you "internalize" the soundsof the various octaves of the spectrum. Please note that TrackCue points occur afterthe identifying slates and warmup drills,so that you may select drillsat random totestyour hearing ability as i t develops.All of us at KIQ Productions gratefully acknowledge and thank the various

record companies that have allowed us to use their recorded materials. We urgeyou to support these companies and buy their records.

38

CreditsCreated and produced by David MoultonEngineer: Robin Coxe-YeJdham.Assistants: BillLee and Dan RicciRights to recorded material granted by:

Boston Skyline Records, Boston, MASOLRecords, 5I Maxfield Street, West Roxbury, MA02131 TeL 617 -3 27 -64 70NC Records, Los Angeles, CA

E x a m p l e s F a m i l y S p lH : i I l c ( h a n g e M u s i c


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T ra c k 1 I n tr o d u e tio n

Drill SellT ru ck 2 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d b s o lte r 5T ra ck 3 , E x 2 E q u a l i l C l l i o n R c h . l o w l c u t 6 d B @ 2 0 0 H z . 1 5T ru c k 4 , E x 3 C om p r e s s io n c o m p r e s s i o n , l a s ! r e l e a s e , 1 1T r a c k 5 , E x 4 l im e -d e l a y /R e v e r b 1 5 m s . t im e d e l o y R c h a n n e lT r o c k 6 , E x 5 D i l l o r t i o n s l i g h ! ( 1 -3 % ) o v e rl o u d d is t o r t i o n ( " d ip p in g " ) 7

Drill Set 2T r a c k 7 , E x 1 E q u a l iz o l i o o R c h . l oW l r u t 6 d B @ 2 0 0 H z . 6T r u c k B , E x 2 D i s ! m t i o n g r o s l ( 1 0 -3 0 % ) o v e r l o a d d i l l o r t io n ( " d i p p i n g " ) , 1 3T r a c k 9 , E x 3 S t e r e o o n e c h a n n e l r a v e r s e d p o l a r i t y 1 4T r u c k 1 0 , E x 4 S t e r e o s te re o r e v er s e d 8T r a c k 1 1 , E x 5 T im e - d e l a y /R e v e r b 5 r n s . t im e d e l a y R c h .

Drift Set 3T r o c k 1 2 , E x I A m p l i t u d e 3 d b ; o ft e r 4T ra ck 1 3, E x 2 n o c h o n g e 9T r u c k 1 4 , E x 3 D is t o r t i o n g ro ss ( 1 0 -3 0% ) o v er l o ad d is t o r t io n ( " di p p in g " ) , I ZT ra ck 1 5 , E x 4 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B a t t e n u a t i o n d u r i n g s a m p l e 1T r u c k 16 , E x 5 E q u a l i z a t i o n m id f r e q u e n c i e s c u t 6 d B (@ 2 K H z J 5

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E n m p ! e s F o m i ! . y S p e d l i c C ho n g e M u s i c

IJrill ScI 4T ra c k 1 .7 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo u d e r 1 5T ra t k 1 8, E x 2 C o m p r e s s i o n { O m p r e s l i o o , f a ~ 1 r e l e a s e 1 1T r a c k 1 9 , E x 3 n o c ha n g e 3T ra c k 2 0 , E x 4 (o m p r o s ~ o n r a m p r e s s i a n , s l o w r e l e a s e " 7T ro ck 2 1 , E x 5 S t e r e o o ne c h o nn el r e v e r s e d p o l a r i t y 6

Drill 51!! 5T ra c k 2 2 , E x 1 S t e r e o . m o no to p se u d o -s i e r e n 1 3T ro ck 2 3 , E x 2 C o m p r e s s i o n { (I m p re ss i o n , l o s t r e le as e 1 4T ru ck 2 4 , E x 3 E q u a l i z a t i o n L r h o l o w s ( 2 0 0 H I. ) b o o st e d ( 1 . h ig hs { 8 K H z. ] C U I 6 d B 8T ra c k 2 5 , E x 4 T i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b g a l e d r e v e r b a d d e dl r c r k 2 6 , E x 5 E q u a l i z a t i o n L r h , l o w s b o o s t e d 6 d B @ 2 0 0 H z .

Drill Set 6T r a c k 2 7 , E x 1 D i s t o r t i o n g r o ls (1 0 - 3 0 % ) o v e r l o ad d i s t o rt i o n ( " d i p p in g "tT r o c k 2 8 , E x 2 n o c h an ge 1 2T ra c k 2 9 , E x 3 S t e r e o s t e r e o t o m o n oT ra c k 3 0 , E x 4 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo u d e rT rm k 3 1 , E x 5 T i m e-d s l a y /R ev e r b r e v e r b a d d e d 1 5

E x a m p l e s F a m i l y S p e c i f i c C h a n ge M u s i c


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Drill Set 7T r o c k 3 2 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo u d e rT r o c k 3 3 , E x 2 n o c h o n g e 1 1T r a c k 34 , E x 3 E q u a l i z a t i o n m i d f r e q u e n c i e s c u t 6 d B @ 1 K H z . 7T r m k 3 5 , E x 4 ( o m p r e ss i o n c om p r e s s i o n , 1 0 0 t r e le cs e 6T r ac k 3 6 , E x 5 A m p l i t u d e 3 d b s o f l e r 1 3

Drill Set 8T ra ck 3 7 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d b b o o s t d u r i n 9 s a m p i e 1 4T r o c k 3 8 , E x 2 D i s t o r t i o n s l i g h t ( 1 -3 % ) o v e r l o a d d is t o r t i o n ( " d ip p in g ' ) 8T r o c k 3 9 , t x 3 T im e - d e l o y /R ev e r b 1 5 m s . t im e d e l a y R c h . 2T r o c k 4 0 , E x 4 S t e r e o s t e r e o r e v e r s e d 4T ra ck 4 1 , E x 5 ( o m p r e s s i o n m m p r e s s i o n , s l o w r e l e a > e 9

Drill Set 9T r o ck 4 2 , E x 1 D i ; t o r t i o n g ro ss ( 1 0 -3 0 % ) o v e r l o ad d i s f e r t i o n r d i p p i n g " ) , 1 2T r u c k 4 3 , E x 2 D is t o rt i o n s l i g h t ( 1 3 % ) o v e r lo a d d i~ t o r t i o n ( " d i p p in g ")T r a c k 4 4 , E x 3 S t e r e o s t e r e o t o m o n oT r o c k 4 5 , E x 4 E q u a l i z a t i o n l t h , m i d s ( 1 K ) b o o s t e d & R c h . h ig hs ( 1 O K ) [ I l t 6 d B 1 5T r o c k 4 6 , E x 5 D i s t o r t i o n s l i g h t ( 1 3 % ) o v e r lo a d d is t o r t i o n ( " d i p p in g ") 5

41

E x a m p l e s F a m i l y S p e c if i c ( b a n g e M u s i c


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Drill Set 10T r a c k 4 7 , E x 1 A m p l i t u d e 3 d B lo ud e r 1 1l r e r k 4 B , E x 2 E q u a l i z a t i o n R (h . l o w s D oo s l e d 6 d B @ 2 0 0 H I .T ra ck 4 9 , E x 3 1 s l i g h t ( 1 3 % ) o v e r l o a d d is t o r t i o n ( " d i p ~ in g " )O i s t ( l r t i o nT ra ck 5 0 , E x 4 A m p l H u d e 3 d B lo u d e r 1 3T ra ck 5 1 , Ed A m p l i t u d e 3 d b b o o s t d u ri n g s a m p l e 1 4

Drift &111T r o c k 5 2 , E x 1 E q u a l i z a t i o n h i g h I r e q u e n d s s t u t 6 d B @ 8 K H z .T r o c k 5 3 , E x 2 T i m e - d e l a y / R e v e r b 1 5 m s. t im e d e l o y l t h ,T r o c k 5 4 , E x 3 E q u a l i z a t i o n m id I r e q u e n d e s r u t 6 d B @ 2 K H z .T r a c k 5 5 , E x 4 E q u a l i z a t i o n R ( h . l o w l b o o s t e d 6 d B @ 1 0 0 H z .T r a c k 5 6 , E x 5 S te re a ,1 s t e re o r e v e rs e d 1 2

':,( l""

Drill s 12T ra ck 5 7 , E x 1 n o ( h an gBT ru c k 5 8 , E x 2 D i s t o r l i o n s l i g h t ( 1 3 % ) o v e rl o a d d is t o r t i o n ( " d i p p in g ")T r o c k 5 9 , E x 3 S t e r e o m o n o 1 0 p s s u d o - s t e r e cT ro (k 6 0 , E x 4 T l m e - d e l a y l R e v e r b 5 0 m s. t im e d e l o y R c h .T r o c k 6 1 , E x 5 A m p l i t ~ d e 3 d B a t t e n u at i o n d u ri n g s a m p le

T ro c k 6 2 C a li b ra ti o n D o lo42

Music Credits.A l e K A c u n a a n d t i l e U n kn o w ns : " Th in k i n g 0 1 Y o u , ' l v e lM I 2 0 0 6 - 2 , lV e R ew ds


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O sc o r e o st r o -N e y e s : "B ra z i l i a n S ca n d o I s " , l V e 2 01 8- 2 , l v e R e co rd s3 lD m (o s t e r : 'G o t c h a ! ! ; l V ( 2 0 1 5 2 , lV C R e m r a s4 F r o n k G a m b a l e : " l l o t e W o r k e r ', ] M ID 2 0 0 1 , l V e R e c o r d s5 D o n G r u s i n , " O o n G r u s i n ," lV e jM ! 2 0 1 0 - 2 , lV e R e c o r d s

K e v y n L e t t a u : 'S lm p la l i f e , " l V e 2 0 1 6 - 2 , lV e R e c o r d sS p e c i a l E F X : ' P l o f , l V e 2 0 1 1 2 , l v e R e c O l d s , l V e R e co rd s

8 S e d o o W a t a n a b e , "M o r n i n g I d a n t l " , l l A l 2 0 13 2 , l V e R e l o rd sS i g n s o f W e : " S i g n s 0 1 W e ; S O L R e (o rd s

1 0 F i f t h E s t a t e : " D i n g D o n g ! T h e W it c h ~ B o c k ! " , B S D 1 1 6 , B o s t o n S k y l i n e R e c o r d s1 1 S e y m o u r H a y d e n : " 5 (0 1 l o l l j b y H o y de n ', B o s t o n S ky li n e R e co rd s1 2 B r u n o R i i b e r g : 'P e n t im e n t o , ' a S D 1 1 5 , B O lI o n S ky l i n e R e c o rd s1 3 " l h e V e ry B e s t o f T R A C K S , 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 7 4 ; B S D I l l , B o s t o n S ky li n e R e c o r d s1 4 T r i o S o n a t a , 8 5 0 1 1 0 , B o s t o n S k y l i n e R e c o r d s1 5 T r i o S o n o t a : " I n r o r a ] " , B S D 1 1 4 , B o s t o n S k y l i n e R e c o r d s

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Problems, Suggestions and Commen.ts


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4 4

Over the years there have been several routine comments that students havemade about the drills that Iwould like to discuss in order to ease your mind.1. "The equalization drills can be tough to hear, especially

octaves 1 and 10."The equalization drills involve all ten octaves of the audio spectrum. Becausethe examples are chosen at random, the octave centered at 31 Hertz is often

involved. What you will soon discover is that most loudspeakers don't do muchbelow 40 Hertz and most recorded music doesn't have much energy down the reeither. So, such examples are hard (impossible, sometimes) to hear. In keepingwith the realities of the real world, that's life. Rernember to guess!2. "The slates are really annoyin.g."Comments (including some remarkably rude ones), suggest that my slates area

distraction, particularly with the AlB drills. There is a reason: auditory memoryfades quickly; and the drills become much easier (too much so, in fact) ifthe t ran-sition from Ato B is very quick. Again, real life doesn't work that way: the problemsusually occur while two people are talking to you while you eat a ham burger in thedoorway of the studio while an automated mix is being made. That's when youneed to be able to hear the aforementioned reverb return drop out. So, the slateisintended to serve as a buffer, a distractor, between the two examples.

3. "It's really hard to hear the stereo examples!"


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Many of the AlB drills that involve stereo/mono, polarity reversal, change onone channel only, etc. are mainly audible along the median plane and barely audi-ble anywhere else in the room. This is an important lesson to learn. Ifyou sit off tothe side of the median plane, you are going to be in trouble.The median plane (as taught in high school geometry-it had to come in handy

sometime) consists of all points equidistant from each speaker. Anything morethan a couple of inches offthe median plane will do grievous damage to the stereoillusion, particularly for critical listening and stereo audio mixing.As an audio pro, learn to fight for a seat on the median plane: your career may

depend it!4. ''What is The Secret to acing these drills in nothing flat?"Frankly, I think intuitive guessing (snap off the answer quickly, without thought,

as soon as you hear the stimulus) works pretty well, particularly as you gain expe-rience. When pink noise is the signal source, characterizing the octave bands (2kHz as a leaky steam fitting, 63 Hz as a distant jet engine, for instance) works pret-ty well, However, this labeling technique has its dangers when you get into pro-gram material, because your pet noise characterizations may not align with theinstrumental timbres you are listening to. Over the long run, I personally havetried to memorize a sense of "highness" or "lowness" for each octave band, andfound this works quite well in real life. If you have a sense of the "sound" of anoctave band (and the sound of its absence) firmly fixed in your ear-memory, it isquick work to move into the equalization realm to f I X problems during recordingsessions.For the AlB drills, I think you have to hang loose, and let the answers come to you.

(How's that for pseudo-Zen?) You do this by relaxing, letting yourself notice that4 5

there is a difference, and then intuitively guessing what the difference is (the most


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terrifying thing about these drills is that often you can't hear a difference at first).Sure, you'll be wrong a lot, but the trick is to notice that there is a difference. Onceyou can do that, the rest is fairly easy. Remember, there is no way that you can learnand know all the differences in your mind beforehand by brute intellectual force.The drills aUinvolve self-scoring, ifyou care to indulge. Keep inmind that this is

not a competition, and just because you score in the high 90 's doesn't mean thatyou have better hearing than some other poor schlumpf. What it means is that youare more effectively recognizing and articulating what you are hearing than youwere when you were scoring in the low 80's. So, the drills aren't tests, and the strict-ly optional scoring is for your own information and critical evaluation.

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History of These DrillsI started giving these ear training drills to individual students and small classes in

my own recording studio in the early 1970s. The method is based on traditionalmusical ear training methods that were inflicted on me in music school (Iuilliardj,but with as much of the terror removed as possible. (Some music schools used totreat ear training as a rite of passage, an initiation - by - humiliation ritual.)

Ai? , some of you may know, in traditional music ear-training, students practicehearing and identifying intervals, chords, melodies, rhythms and counterpoint."Taking dictation" (Gulp!- I still cringe in fear, just thinking about it!)meant lis-tening to the teacher play something and writing it down by ear. The beginningpart of this training was simply identifying intervals and chords. It is from thatbasic practice that I developed these drills. I've found that the tenor part of ear-training is not only unnecessary, but actually counterproductive, and that b ybeing friendly and supportive about it my students (that's you, now) progressquickly and enthusiastically

So,when you do the drills in Volume 1you will be doing the equivalent of iden-


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tifying intervals and chords: you will be learning to identify regions of the audiospectrum. Volume 2 includes drills to help you learn to discern signal-processing(lcall them AtB drills), and after that there will be increasingLy challenging spec-trum drills, to a point where you should be able to hear and identify completeequalization settings by ear. That's right, you should be able to listen to an equal-izer switched in and out on a recording and describe how the equalizer is set, interms of frequencies and the amount of boost or cut, by ear alone!These drills have evolved somewhat over the years, and have achieved a certain

amount of renown. National Public Radio has used them as part of the training fortheir production and engineering personnel, and I have used them in a variety ofcollege programs, including the Music Production and Engineering program atBerklee and the 'Ionmeister Studies program at the State University of New York,College at Fredonia. In addition, they have been used by faculty at UCLA,NewYorkUniversity, the Danish Acoustical Institute, and NBC.At present, I am developing afull course in critical listening based on these drills for Emerson College in Boston.There are other people also working on critical listening skills for music and

audio. Alton Everest and Tom Rossing have released some excellent auditorydemonstration recordings. Their recordings are intended to demonstrate theaudible effect of various signal processing operations and psychoacoustic effects.Andresj Miskiewicz, currently at Northeastern University in Boston and formerlyat the Chopin Academy inWarsaw, Poland, has developed a wonderful and verypowerful curriculum that he calls Auditory Solfege. This is an active ear-trainingcurriculum (you need a teacher and a fair amount of hardware to do it) for record-ing engineers that involves an elaborate array of exercises and training. After threeyears of study, you can hear and identify just about everything! VI,TillMoylan, at theUniversity ofMassachusetts at Lowell, has developed an auditory skills course that

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involves analytical listening and notation of recorded sounds that is generallyrelated to the "taking dictation" part of conventional music ear-training. Check


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out his book, The Art of Recording: The Creative ReSOll[LeSof Music Productionand Audio.My drills are a series of exercises intended to help you learn how to identifysound characteristics under a wide variety of circumstances, by ear alone.

Through practice on drills of increasing levels of difficu It y , they allowyou to devel-op hearing skills and the ability to describe sounds to a point fairly close to the l im -its of auditory discrimination for frequency and amplitude. They are designed fo rhome use, and to be extremely user-friendly. Allyou really need is a CD player andmoderately decent speakers or headphones. After you've gone through and mas-tered the drills inVolumes 1 and 2, you should be able to describe the responsecurve of any given system, as well as the control settings on an equalizer. theamount of delay on a time-delay line, and the settings on a compressor or noisegate. Further, you should be able to pick out most regular signal processing l - v i t hconsiderable confidence.

TI l i s audio ear-training can be fun, in a weird kind of wa y . Youwill find that i tcan easily arouse your competitive instincts, and YOLI may come to delight inimpressing your friends at parties with your new-found high-tech vocabulary, asin, "The zither seems to be down two dB at 750 Hz and there's about 4% To t a lHarmonic Distortion on the second harmony bagpipe track Oh, and by the w a y ,the m id-range driver on the left speaker is wired out of polarity." However, audioear training is much more than a game. You really cannot expect to make profes-sional quality music without such skills. Intelligent hearing (AKA.Golden Ears) isabasic tool you should have in your bag of audio goodies (next to the red Sharpie.the Etymotk Ear Plugs and the Ty l eno l ) ,

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Objectives of this study


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The Ear as an Acoustical Test Measurement InstrumentThe human auditory system is a remarkable sensory system, capable of obser-

vations and discrimination that equal or exceed all but the most elaborate testingequipment we've been able to buiJd to measure sound. Therefore, it is possible forus to use our hearing as a test instrument, once we figure out how to articulatewhat it is we are bearing. The ability to accurately describe the physical nature ofwhat we are hearing is a primary objective of the Golden Ears Drills.Ear Training and LearningThere is also a higher-level "Zen oflearning" aspect to all ear-training. Musical

sound is generally perceived in the right hemisphere of the brain as "spatial" orholistic patterns, and as such is not generally avaiJable to the "verbal" left brain forconscious verbalized description. This is part of the difficulty with ear-training.Although the actual act of perception is fairly easy, it exists in a realm of our con-sciousness that doesn't have words.

( I f you are curious about this right brain/left brain business, check out TomBlakeslee's excellent book for normal people, The Right Brain.)Nonetheless, you can certainly learn to describe what you hear, and the ability

to effectively articulate audio issues is priceless in our field. The clumsy, inarticu-late conversation that takes place among musicians, engineers, and producers,such as "Can you like, make, the guitar a little fluffier, y'know what I mean?" seri-ously interferes with their creative efforts.

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Being Able to Speak Accurately About What You HearAs you become fluent at this, you w i l l be able to easily note many things about


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a recording, quickly and apparently effortlessly. You w i l l be able to "hear through"the recording much better, identifying signal processing, level problems, etc. withlittle trouble.How Good Can Your Ears Get?Acouple of years ago, a colleague of mine, who likes to complain that he is going

deaf in one ear and can't hear anything high in the other, knocked the proposedCBSCopycode scheme (which was allegedly inaudible) right out of the ballpark byidentifying it 100% of the time in controlled double-blind tests conducted by theNational Bureau of Standards. Once he astounded me by identifying, by brandand model, the side microphone I had used in a middle-side stereo recording Iwas playing for him, and noting (correctly, as I found out to my chagrin) that it wasnot functioning to spec! And yes, he has done these drills!When you get the hang of doing these drills, the stuff you can hear wi l l seem

equally magical to others, and your ability to quickly and surely arrive at the soundyou need w i l l seem remarkable to them. To you, it w i l l be obvious and intuitive.Youw i l l have Golden Ears.

A Few Warnings


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The Challenge'fry not to lose self-confidence when working on your Golden Ears. It can be a

slow process of learning, and you may occasionally get stuck and feel like youaren't progressing. Stick to it and pace yourself. Just as when you learned to ride abicycle, you learn this stuff through repeated failures.Also, I think it is really important to go over tills stuff with the answers in hand

repeatedly until you are sure you actually can consciously identify the sounds we arestudying. Youwill often get lost, will not be able to hear a change, or will hear some-thing else (aboost in EQwill of course make something louder- the trick is to knowthat it wasn't just louder, but louder at a specific part of tile spectrum). Youwi l l getfrustrated and tired sometimes. Keep the faith! It's like learning to ride a bicycle!Getting Lower Scores While You Are Getting BetterThe nature of the drills is such that as you progress, the drills get harder. Ifyou

bother to score yourself, you may notice that yow' scores keep getting worse. Don'tbe discouraged. To use a golf analogy, 'the drills start out as allPar 3 and progressto being all Par 6! Don't expect to be getting PaJ:3 scores on Par 6 exercises!If you need a quick ego boost as you get mired down in some of the more

advanced stuff, go back and try the earlier, easier drills. For instance, after you'vebeen trying to guess that B has attenuated 3 dB during the example, you will findthat pink noise boosted 12 dB in one octave band is really disgustingly easy

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About Monitors


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There is no such thing as a perfect monitoring environment. Because theseexercises utilize the entire audible spectrum, weaknesses in your monitoring sys-tem will be exposed. This is exacerbated b y the fact that you are performingextremely critical listening. The solution here is to simply do your ear 'training,accepting and compensating in your mind for the apparent frequency responsedeficiencies introduced by your monitors. In fact, the audio recordings you pro-duce or listen to will be played on countless different systems, many of which areprobably inferior to your monitoring set -up. Learning to compensate mentally fordeficiencies in the monitoring space is part of training your Golden Ears.Changing EarsAs you start this drill work, you will notice that your perception of sounds

changes. For a while, it may be a little disconcerting, and you should be mentallyprepared for this. A s you begin to internalize the audible spectrum, you will starthearing everything in terms of octaves. You roll down the car window at seventy(er, fifty-five, I know, I know) and hear Octave 2 (63 Hz) instead of wind buffeting.Youtune in a sports event and instead of crowd roar you hear Octave 5 (500 Hz).Instead of a light metallic edge on an acoustic guitar you hear Octave 9 (8kHz)!Also,the AlB drills wi l l make you so paranoid about each little nuance that you

will start listening to just the spaces between the sounds. For a while, you will findyou stop hearing the music and instead hear only the reverb, the sonic detailing,the delays, the release trails and attack pumping of compressors.lNhew!This goes away, sort of, after you have acquired and internalized these Golden

Ear skills, so that your original musical focus and subjective enjoyment comesback. But you wi l l also have an added dimension, a hearing acuity that allows youto hear your way into and through the sounds in a way that you never could

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before, forever altering your sense of what sound is and can be.


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Tarnished Ears?Do not panic ifyou find you can not hear above 19,995Hz Lots of students havecome to me in terror because they can't hear some high frequency and are sure

their career is over! In fact, the half-octave bout 15 kHz isn't terribly significantmusically and isn't played back by all that many audio systems.Weoften refer to the audible spectrum as 20 Hz to 20 kHz , but those stated lim-

its are really just convenient values for us to remember. Amore functional defini-tion of the useful audible spectrum for music recording might be 40 Hz to 15 kHzIn addition, the fact that you are in the audio engineering field at all suggests youhave had above average exposure to sound at loud levels (in the studio, attend-ing/working concerts, etc.). So it is possible that you may even have slightlyreduced acuity at some frequencies. Additionally, we aren't all born equal. Women,in my experience, seem to have greater sensitivity to high frequencies and to har-monic distortion than men. Individual variances between people are significant aswell.Don't worry! Knowing more specifics about what you can and cannot hear willimprove your critical listening skills.You can be sure that many of the engineerswhose work has sold millions of records have done it with hearing that is physio-logicallyfar from perfect. The colleague I mentioned above is a classic example.Tired Ea.rsAh, yes. Tired ears are also tired brains. And when you are tired, you can't hear

very well, in a critical listening sense. You can't do these drills for very long, just asyou can't expect to work totally creatively and productively for sixteen hours at astretch. The perceptual job is just too tough, and you've got to accept the limita-tions of your own particular attention span.

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How do you know when you are tired? When lauds don't seem loud anymore,and you feel the urge to really crank it up to give you a little shot of adrenaline. We


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a ll like to crank it up. of course, but I suggest that you limit it to the occasionalrecreational abuse, at home. Don't do it as a professional practice.Another sign that you're getting tired is when you begin to get confused, bored,or impatient, which is nature's way oftelling you it's time to stop. \Norkon this stuffonly for as long as you can really focus on it.In Closing A s your experience develops, your confidence in recording, mixing, production,

and listening sessions wi l l go way up. That's because you can not only hear, but ,also describe what you hear in physical quantities, saying "the toms are boosted 6dB at 250 Hertz" instead of "the toms sound tubby," or "the piccolo is down 3 dB at500 Hertz," instead of"} think the piccolo sounds thin"This business is really about sound, and this is the best doorway into sound thatIknow. So don't let the Audio Devils get you. May the Force be with you, and

remember, ifyou can't hear it, it's probably 31 Hertz being cut! Good luck!Dave Moulton, Groton, :M A

ps: W elt r e a lly like to he a r fr om you abou t the s e d r ills . W e'r e ope n to su gge s t ion s ,improu eme ru s, e tc ., a nd w ou ld ju st like to ta lk to anybody tha t ha s bothe r e d to r e adthis fa r ! . Thanks aga in for you r in te r e s t .Write to: KIQ/Golden Ears, 13351-D Riverside Drive,

Sherman Oaks, CA91423Or call us at: 213/650-2467 (Fax: 213/650-2468)Or Email to:[email protected]

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Acknowledgments
mailto:to:[email protected]:to:[email protected]


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I'd like to thank a bunch of people for their support. In the beginning, atDondisound tudios, Greg Becker and Torn Swift gave me a tremendous amountof help. Too manywonderful students to mention by name at SUNYI Fredonia suf-fered through early versions and gave me much help and guidance ( i t used to bea weeldy ritual- ear training at 6 PM every Monday for the Tonmeister students).A t National Public Radio, Skip Pizzi, Neil Muncy, Paul Blakemore, C u r t Wittig,Elaine Salazar, Dave Glasser, and Terry Skelton all provided great help and sup-port. A t B erk le e , I 'd l ik e to specially thank Tony Dibartolo, Mark Wolinski, MarkHutchins, Robin C o x e - Y e l d h a m , WayneWadhams, C a r l Beatty, and M i tc h B en of f ,not to mention A le x I Tadge and Peter Alhadeff. A t Home and Studio RecordingMagazine, thanks to Nick Batzdorffor encouraging me to go ahead with this pro-ject. And especially, thanks to my wife June, who used to do these drills on the slyout in the office while Iwas doing classes in the control room at Dondi ound, andwho has listened to more pink noise than anyone should ever reasonably have to!Thanks again to a ll of you!

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About the authorDave Moulton has degrees in music from Bard College and the Iuilliard School


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ofMusic. He has taught music, audio, and acoustics at a variety of colleges, includ-ing the State University of New York, College at Fredonia and Berklee College ofMusic, where he has served as Chair of the Music Production and EngineeringDepartment. He is currently on the faculty at both the University ofMassachusettsat Lowell and Emerson College in Boston. During the 1970s he owned and oper-ated Dondisound Studios, a commercial recording facility in upstate NewYork.Hehas been active in acoustics and loudspeaker desi.gn and shares in several patentspertaining to loudspeakers. He is currently a writer for Recording Magazine, andis completing a book on music recording. Dave is active as a composer and record-ing engineer.

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Three

and Reverb drills

Volume 3 of the Golden Ears Ear Training Dr i l l s is devoted to the developmentof your ability to discriminate time intervals. Specifically. the first CD in the vol-


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ume focuses on the perception and identification of short delay times, while thesecond CD focuses on the perception and identification of pre delay and reverber-ation decay times.There are a couple of very important things to know about our perception of

time in sound. The most important thing is that 50 milliseconds (which representsa frequency of 20 Hz.), represents a very important discrimination boundary forus. Multiple events occurring more than 50ms, apart in time are perceived as sep-arate events, while multiple events occurring less than 50 ms. apart in time arefused into a "single" event, perceptually. So the range of delays between about 30and 70 ms. is one of the most important ranges to learn to hear. Interestingly, thisthreshold defines the lowest sinusoidal frequencies we hear, as well as the bound-ary between perceived still frames and moving pictures (it's no coincidence thatthe lowest viable frame rate for f i lm is 24 frames per second'),The second thing to know is that the onset of the precedence, or Haas, effect

(where the sound appears to come from the earlier sound source) is about.7 mil-liseconds. Delays shorter than that are perceived as corning from a point betweenthe two sound sources while delays longer than that are perceived to come fromthe earlier source, sort of. Inpractice, delays between .7 and 15 ms. give variouslocalization senses depending on speaker placement, room size, etc.Finally, you should know that these localization phenomena become timbral

phenomena when you sum the delays with the undelayed signal i.nmono. Thisdifference represents, to me, one of the most fascinating and revealing paradoxesabout our listening system. Have fun twisting your mind around trying to under-stand it!The reverb drills are designed to help you recognize and identify reverb onset

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and decay times, and to be able to predict the emotional and musical impact var-ious times will have on different styles of music.


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The amount of predelay determines something about the impact of a sound.The sound "Kaboom' can be thought of as "Boom" with 100 ms. predelay; The sec-ondary punch of the onset of reverb adds great emotional intensity and force tosounds. How much is good? Itdepends on the music, its tempo, and mood. I'vechosen a range (0 - 100ms.) that straddles the 50 ms, threshold described above.Afteryou've done these drills, you'll have a pretty good handle on your "predelayvaluesystem."Reverb time describes "how long it takes sound to die away." More importantly,sounds that take a long time to die away are "louder longer," which is to say they

aremore easily heard under the direct or dry sounds while the music is going on.Atthe same time, different reverberance times have different emotional qualities,and your ability to predict these for any given music are going to make productionworkmuch, much easier. I've chosen a range that covers the generally useful rangeofreverb times: .3 seconds to 5 seconds.Doing the Delay DrillsA s , you've done with previous drill sets, get yourself set on the median plane,

with answer sheet and pencil at hand and audio system levels set. Start at thebeginning, which is a series of demonstration recordings. Play the demonstra-tions,listening carefully to the impact and sound character of the different delays.There are 35 different delay times, ranging from 0 to 170 milliseconds. These aredemonstrated three times: first with a kick drum sound, second with Pink Noise,and finallywith a brief phrase of vocal music. Ai:, the decay times increase from 0to 1ms., the sound will pan from center toward the earlier speaker. From 1 to 20ms., the sound will hover about the earlier speaker, but will be ambiguous and

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change its location ...vith each different delay. Between 20 and 50 ms . , the soundwill "pull apart" into two separate sounds: the original undelayed sound and its


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audible echo.One interesting thing to note and keep in mind is that 30 rns. delay equals one

video frame of delay, 60 ms equals 2 frames, etc. I f you ale working with filmsound, learning to recognize these delays i s particularly useful.Take a break, then listen to the demos again in mono. Inmono, you w i l l hear the

delays manifested as a pitch (this is known as "comb filtering") that gets lower asthe delay gets longer. At 50 ms. the delay is so long that the pitch is below audio,and you will hear a clangorous quality on sustained sounds.J suggest you play the demos over a number of times, listening to them in thebackground while you are doing other things to get them in your ears. When youfeel pretty confident you understand and can hear the various delays in thedemonstrations, then go ahead to the drills.You can start doing the drills either b y listening to them while looking at the

answers or by guessing the answers. There are fo u r k ic k drum drills, three P i n kNoise Drills, and ten music drills. I recommend you do up to three drills in anygiven session, but no more unless you're feeling really sharp. These things are tir-iog, and wear you out in a hurryAfteryou take a drill yo u can score yourself. Ifyo u guess th e correct d e l a y on an

example, give yourself 10 for that example. For each delay interval "off" you are,take away 1, so that ifyou guessed 10 ms, and the righ answer was 20 ms., yourscore is 7. Total up your scores for all ten examples. Aperfect score for a drill set is1 0 0 . I f you simply wrote down random answers, you should get around 2 0 points.Iexpect you should be getting scores of between 70 and 85 once you get the hangof it. In case you hadn't already figured it out, I dont th.ink scores are very impor-tant, except as a way for you to chart your progress.

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After you've done all the drills, use the random function on your CD player topermit you take these drills over and over. If you get to the point where you haveactually memorized al.lof the drills, you certainly won't need my help anymore!


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Once again, remember to limit your study sessions to three or at most four drill sets.How The Delay Drills Were :MadeThe delay drills were produced using a truncated kick drum sample, Pink Noise

from an Ivie Pink Noise generator, and Compact Disc recordings in a variety ofmusical styles. Although these drills are pretty dose to Fair Use under the copy-right law, we have obtained permissions from all owners of the commerciallyrecorded material, and would like to thank them by encouraging you to supportthem by buying their records. See the credit list for a complete listing of all record-ings used.Allexamples for all drill sets were recorded onto two channels of an AlesisADAT

recorder. Using the BRCcontroller, delay offsets for one channel or the other werecreated as the recordings were recorded to hard disk via Dlgidesigns Pro Tools forediting and assembly:I determined delays and channels by the use of a random number generator,

with the following limit: I never repeated a delay. I did, however, include No Delayas a possibility. So don't try to anticipate what is going to come n e x t , I wasn't t ry -ing to fool you or play mind games.The slate for each track actually appears at the end of the identifying slate so

that you may listen 'blind' to each trackDoing the Reverb DrillsAs above, get yourself set on the median plane, with answer sheet and pencil at

hand, and audio system levels set. Strut at the beginning, which is a series of

demonstration recordings. Play the demonstrations, listening carefully to theimpact and sound character ofthe different predelay and reverb times. There aresix different predelay times, ranging from 0 to 100 milliseconds, and eight differ-


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ent reverb decay times, ranging from.3 seconds to 5 seconds. These are demon-strated three times: first with a kick drum sound, second with a drum machineloop. and finally with a brief phrase of piano music. Each reverb time is demon-strated with aU SL , { predelay possibilities.As with the delay demos, you can listen to the demos repeatedly, and I recom-

mend that you Listento them in the background while you are doing other stuff toget them comfortably in your ears.You can start doing the drills either by listening to them while looking at theanswers or by guessing the answers. There are four kick drum drills. three drum kitDrills. and seven music drills. I recommend you do up to three drills in any givensession, but no more unless you're feeling really sharp. These things are tiring andwear you out in a hurry.After you take a drill you can score yourself. Ifyou guess the correct predelay onan example, give yourself 5; ifyou correctly guess reverb time, giveyourself anoth-er 5 for that example. For each predelay interval or reverb time "off" you are, takeaway 1, so that jf you guessed 40ms, predelay and 1.5 seconds reverb time and theright answer was 20 ms. predelay and 2.5 seconds reverb time, your score is 7.Totalup your scores for all ten examples. Aperfect score for a mill set is 100. Uyou sim-ply wrote down random answers, you should get around 20 points. I expect youshould be getting scores of between 70 and 85 once you get the hang of H.After you've done all the drills, use the random function on your CD player to

permit you take these drills over and over. If you get to the point where you haveactually memorized all of the drills, you are probably way beyond my help!Once again, remember to limit your sessions to three or, at the most, four drill sets.

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How The Reverb Drills Were MadeThe reverb drills were produced using a truncated kick drum sample, some

ilium loops from aYamaha keyboard, and Compact Disc recordings in a variety of


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musical styles. Although these drills are pretty close to Fair Use u

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